


All we know

by withered



Series: Roses [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternative Universe - No shinigami, Coping with the death of loved ones, Discussion of Death, F/M, Funeral, Sorry Hisana, Sorry Masaki, Talk of Cancer, Talk of a car accident, coping with guilt, discussion of canon character deaths
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: Ichigo, still numb from the loss of his mother, isn't quite sure how alive he actually is. While Rukia, finally able to say goodbye to her sister after a long battle with cancer, has to deal with the next tragedy on her plate: life after Hisana.Neither had any intentions when they meet, by chance, in the cemetery, but Death always did have a way of bringing them together.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

It starts with a funeral.

Ichigo didn't know who's in the beginning, but the Universe worked in strange ways. He was seventeen, and his mother had been gone for so long his sisters only remember what she looked like because of that stupid blown up picture his dad has posted on the wall in the dining room.

He remembers her, though, rather vividly at that, and out in the rain – staring at the marker, and his reflection against the polished black stone – he thought,  _You've always had the happiest eyes, Ma._ Because while he may scowl and glare, and look sullen and sour as a default, Ichigo knew he took after his mother.

It didn't matter how often he considered dying his hair, it was his mother that peered at him in the mirror when he looked at his reflection – checking out the damage from his most recent fight. It was why his hair is still orange despite his (unwarranted) claims to delinquency, the unwanted attention he receives, or the Karakura thugs who're stupid enough to try and get him to join their gangs after he'd beaten them to pulps. Morons.

But today wasn't about them, or how the only thing he's gotten from his mother was her coloring. Today, it was about her.

He offers the flowers before her, and tells her quietly, "I'm sorry I'm late", before rising back up from his haunches to stare at his blackened reflection, her name engraved in white.

Some distance away, just over the marker of her final resting place, a service is happening, and a sullen collection of people stand over a coffin that has already been buried.

Though everyone is dressed appropriately in black, there was a girl in the crowd, standing out like a sore thumb in all white.

Ichigo can practically hear the disapproval of her wardrobe choice from where he was, and he managed a grunt in agreement.

If it weren't for the umbrella she twisted about overhead, he might have even managed to add that to the list of reprimands against her.

He's got no room to talk though. He's still in his school uniform and without his school blazer, no raincoat or umbrella in sight; he was already soaked to the bone. But that's not a new thing for him either.

Unconsciously, while he considers the script below  _Kurosaki Masaki_  that reads  _loving soul, wife and mother_ , he thought, rather morbidly, that today was a perfect day for a funeral: Dark clouds, storm approaching, rain everywhere.

His shoes make a squelching noise as he shifts.

God, he hates the rain.

His mother died in the rain when he was eight. They were walking home from karate practice and stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things, the grocer had dropped an extra jar of sweets for him to share with his sisters; his mother and he shared an ice-cream.

That was as far as he ever delved, as far as his mind would take him – and then it's all just flashes of moments, like discarded polaroids he keeps in a box somewhere: The contents of the grocery bag scattered along the pavement, that extra jar of sweets destroyed; her shout for him to get out of the way; the screech of tires; her eyes (brown as his, wide as his, scared as his –), and then - and then, she's lying face down in a pool of blood that's red-red-red.

The sirens usually wake him from his reverie, the color of blue and red more than the wail of it, but this time it's the faint color of purple, and the pitter-patter sounds of rain bouncing off an umbrella that isn't his.

He blinks.

"You'll get sick."

His voice is hoarse from disuse, "That matters to you?"

"Not particularly." He can see the white of her dress in the corner of his vision, her voice deeper than he expected. "But I don't think she'd be happy to know that you're standing here in the rain."

 _Kurosaki Masaki_  stared at him, and in looking away, he sees the girl beside him.

 _She's so short_  is the first thing that comes to mind, that, and despite the torrent, she doesn't look touched by the rain at all.  _Must be nice_ , he thinks bitterly.

"Idiot, don't you own an umbrella?" is her next remark.

"Didn't think it was going to rain," he retorts.

"Don't you watch the weather report in the morning?"

"I didn't know I was coming here until I did." Until he had the absurd thought that he hadn't visited his mother in a while, that he missed her birthday; that her death anniversary was too far away – Until he had her favorite flowers in his hand from that same grocer he saw the day she died, until he was on the train to get  _here_.

Her voice is quiet, "She must've missed you."

It's suddenly hard to swallow, but he echoes nonetheless, "Yeah, maybe."

They stand in silence for all of two minutes before he hears himself say, "She's been gone a long time though."

A tragedy, Ichigo has come to realize, watching the group of people linger around the erected gazebo near the freshly dug grave, is an event.

Some simply bear witness, distant observers to a performance they find themselves sitting in on.

The thought of them make his eyes itch with a phantom burn, makes him remember the shocked faces of the other pedestrians standing around doing nothing but  _looking_. As if Ichigo is just an actor, like his mother is just some prop, like the accident that took her was part of some show.

Others though, others are reactors.

Those people that willingly engage, involve themselves, wanting to be part of it. Those that ask him, poke and prod him, wanting to know  _what happened, are you alright, does it still hurt_?

Ichigo can't tell which he despises more.

After the accident, Ichigo didn't expect the wave of sympathy that had rushed him, hadn't been prepared to do anything but drown in it thanks to the weight of his mother's loss pulling him down-down-down.

Later, he'd learn to tread water when the tragedy was less a fascination and more a passing thought.

Every Mother's Day since, he silently stewed, and whenever someone asked what he was doing for his mom this year, forgetting that she had passed away at all, he mastered carelessly shrugging and replying blandly, "Flowers, I guess."

It was pointless to remind people that she was gone; he had no intention of rehashing a memory that haunts him so potently still, even if, as he's so often told himself, "It's too late to be sad."

The girl beside him stands quietly, eyes cast to the sky still cracked open by a storm in the horizon. Over a rolling thunder, she says, "There's no expiry date for emotions."

He looks at her incredulously, but instead of being embarrassed (though he considers that she has no reason to be), she continues firmly, "Whatever you feel, let yourself feel it. You can't dilute yourself to make other people feel comfortable. You have to live with you; don't make it harder than it already is."

After standing side by side saying nothing else, they end up going to the coffee shop just outside the cemetery.

A black car waits for her on the curb, but she waves it off, the driver's side door shutting again with an almost resounding thud.

"Sorry for your loss," he finally remembers to say as they stand in the doorway of the coffee shop.

The firm shake she gives the umbrella is slightly firmer than necessary, and he catches the hard swallow she pushes down her throat, even as she nods, dark hair hiding blue eyes.

Resolutely, he orders for them once they're seated, and finally, she speaks, "I don't even like hot chocolate."

"You're not human."

"I could be allergic." His expression is caught between a squint of disbelief and a thoughtful frown, and she snorts at his expression. "I'm not, but I could have been." A second later, she took a sip, all complaints gone, humming as she did, and all Ichigo can think with a smirk tugging at his lips was  _this girl is full of shit_.

He finds out that her sister, who she had just buried, had passed away from a cancer that had spread at a rapid pace, overtaking every organ until she was being kept alive entirely by machines.

"Hisana wanted to go," she says firmly, though her eyes are glassy and even with the way she's rapidly blinking, the slight red tinge in them isn't hard to miss. "She was in pain, and she wanted to go."

"She stayed for you," and Ichigo doesn't know whether that's an explanation or an accusation of sorts, but she nods, nonetheless.

"For her husband too, she really loves him," she adds, and he doesn't correct her use of the present tense.

He doesn't tell her about his mother either, and she doesn't ask, instead they talk about everything else:

How his father is insane, likely why after all these years he's yet to remarry. How her brother-in-law, distantly loving as he is, has a permanent stick up his ass.

How she loves horror movies but can't watch them by herself. How he knows all the subplots to the top three latest K-dramas because of his sisters which she called bullshit on, and she was right (he watches it without them because Karin always ends up throwing something at the TV).

How he kidnaps his sisters from school whenever he knows they're having a bad day and treats them out to anything that makes them feel better.

How she ran away from home once but came back before anyone noticed because she realized her favorite show was on.

"You're literally the most dramatic dumbass I've ever met," he informs with a snort, hot chocolate finished, clothes uncomfortably damp.

"Excuse you; you didn't see the dress she wanted to stuff me in. I love Hisana, I do, but no one looks good masquerading as a mint green crème puff," she declares, arms crossed in a huff.

"So you decided the only way to handle it was to pack up your shit and hit the railroad tracks?"

She sniffs. "Clearly you have no appreciation for theatre."

"You came back," he reminds, "just because your show was on."

"It was the latest episode! He was going to find out that the kid was his!"

"And did he?"

"No, it was just another ships-passing-in-the-night moment, the jerks."

Before he can retort how typical that trope is, a man in a black suit walked in, speaking to his shoes as he bows to her, "Kuchiki-sama, your brother has requested for you to return home, you are due to start school tomorrow morning."

The smirk she's been sporting smooths over to one of forced indifference as she nods, before flashing a look at Ichigo that's neither a smile nor the mask she's conjured forth. "Thank you," her voice quivers for the first time, "I…I needed this."

"Yeah," he nods, "me too."

"Do you want a lift home?" she offers, making to stand and he, following like an idiot.

"Uh no." He rubs the back of his neck; conscious of the glare her driver was leveling him over her shoulder. "But I should probably go anyway. It's getting late. It was nice meeting you."

Her smile, a real smile, is brief. "You too, see you around."

Not even five minutes later, he's standing on the sidewalk watching the black car peel out, and Ichigo with a bemused smile notes that the sky is clearing up.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Ichigo could feel people's stares as he brushed through the throng of high school students finally heading home for the day.

Absently, he waves off Keigo's exclamations about  _where did you go, Ichigoo?_  And was gratified when Chad drags him easily away, a solemn nod exchanged just as Ichigo turned down the street, coming to stand by Tatuki at a crossing.

She blinks up at him in apparent surprise, Inoue at her other side staring at him in shock.

"Didn't see you in class," she finally settles on.

He shrugs, and though she'd continued to look at him in assessment, she huffed out a sigh before deciding to say, "We've got an English paper due on Friday."

"Thanks."

Inoue doesn't stop staring, and he can feel her heavy gaze as he continues down the opposite road.

In the reflections he caught of himself, he doesn't look physically different. Granted, he did drip up and down the train station, and dried in patches – skin sticky with an uncomfortable combination of sweat and dew. He wasn't overly concerned about it though, even as Yuzu exclaimed about how he'd get sick and,  _"Ichi-nii, haven't you heard of an umbrella?"_

His little sister had stopped short of the lecture though, eyes suddenly wide.

At the abrupt end of her rant, Karin leaned back in her seat to peer around the corner at them – the back legs of her chair tilting precariously as she did so, her gaze narrowed with curious suspicion.  _"Why are you smiling?"_

He huffs, shaking his head. Patting Yuzu on the head in apology for the puddle he'd left in the doorway, he gently nudged Karin's chair back until she was safely sitting again before patting her head too and trudging up the stairs.

His departure garnered a stunned sort of silence, and dinner that night followed in the same vein. Even his father was casting him surreptitious glances.

As he washed the dishes, Karin hissed,  _"I give up, what's wrong with him?"_

Their dad guessed, " _Maybe he got laid? Ack, Karin!"_

" _Shut up, you old pervert, this is serious!"_

" _Ano,"_ Yuzu murmured,  _"Ichi-nii seems happy, does it matter why?"_

Karin's reply was muffled by the rush of water from the tap, and Ichigo was suddenly grateful for it, a heaviness returning in increments as he listened to their indistinguishable conversation.

He'd always been quiet, grumpy if his family were to be believed. But he has friends, he talks shit, he laughs. He goes out, he does well in class, he helps out at home. He has favorite books and movies and music. He has plans to get a car with the part-time job he got at Urahara's, has a vague aspiration to go to college in Tokyo, has a fleeting desire to go overseas and see the sun rise and set on the other side of the world.

He isn't miserable, isn't unhappy.

But.

But.

_Does it matter why?_

The world suddenly feels fragile, and for three months, that fragility dug into his skin like sand he couldn't quite brush off, an annoying reminder that something is different – something has changed.

It's neither entirely good nor entirely bad.

His temper fluctuates from nearly pleasant to outright awful, his patience frays at the edges before weaving into something stronger, more stable. It makes him feel like he's too big for his skin, simultaneously too much and not enough, and if it makes him more alert, more present as if to ensure he doesn't miss whatever the culmination is, no one else makes mention of it, and if they do, they don't say so around him.

(Though he's heard whispered conversations between his sisters,  _"He went to see Mom that day, maybe…?"_ and he thinks back to that day, goes over it in his head, turns it over in his mind, and wonders.)

It isn't until he sees her that he settles, like something inside him sighs,  _oh_.

With her arms around her legs, her chin resting on her knees, she looks peaceful, but also strangely – weirdly – unhappy, as if he would know what that looked like on another person. He shakes his head, ignoring his suddenly pounding heart, and calls out, "Yo."

Startled, she straightens, seeming to return to wherever she disappeared from, and blinks blue eyes at him, the spark of recognition curling her lip into a reluctant smile before she murmurs slowly, "Hey…"

Ichigo wonders if she felt it too.

Arms settling at his sides, messenger bag hanging from one hand, he tilts his head slightly to look up at her from her perch atop the hill overlooking the sidewalk. "What're you doing up there?"

She exhales, long and drawn out, like a breath she'd been holding for too long. "Just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself."

She shoots him an unimpressed look.

He snickers. "What's with the get-up?" He prods, cocking a smirk. "Did you run away to join the military? Couldn't cut it as a hobo?"

"For your information, it's my school uniform," she declares with a huff, and it dawns on him then that he recognizes the insignia on her shapeless blue coat, the only private school in Karakura. He isn't surprised considering what he remembers of her manners in the coffee shop so many weeks before, the car that had waited for her, the  _driver_ she had.

Though the near jaunty tilt of her dark blue beret invites him to tease, "Ah, so you did." When she throws her hat off at him, he smirks. "Was this before or after they made concessions to you being vertically impaired?"

"Says the walking traffic cone," she retorts easily, the swipes they take at each familiar despite only having spoken to each other once weeks ago. Odder still, how he can identify the way she wilts ever so slightly when he asks, "So, what are you doing, really?"

"What do you mean?"

His stuck his hands into his pockets, the strap of his bag digging into his wrist. "Exactly that."

She pauses for a moment, before, "Are you asking because you care, or asking because you're interested?"

"I can't be both?"

"What do you get out of it?" she asks, looking strangely guarded all of a sudden, and it makes him frown.

"Is there something I can get out of it?" When she doesn't answer immediately, his brow furrows deeper. "If I wasn't worried about you before, I really am now."

There's uncertainty in her expression that colors her words, "You're…worried? About me?"

He rolls his eyes. "Despite contrary belief, I can do more than scowl at people."

That pulls a smile from her, reluctant and unwilling as ever, even as she demands, "You have to promise not to laugh at me."

"I'm sure you're not that funny."

"Dick," she huffs, and even as he smirks at her, she rolls her eyes and nudges her chin. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get up here."

He manages to climb up beside her, though he's a lot more winded then he'll admit. The incline was a lot more brutal than it looked, but he was already too far up by the time he remembered there were stairs just down the path.

Still, he catches his breath discretely, even as she snorts her amusement under her breath.

For a while neither of them say anything as they sit side by side, the stream tranquil in its stillness as the sun bounces off the surface of the water some distance ahead of them.

"I hate school," she finally says, and when she has nothing further to add, he shrugs.

"Everyone hates school."

She sighs. "Byakuya-sama has been incredibly kind, and pulled a dozen strings to get me in, and I…I don't belong there."

"You don't have to stay there, you know that, right? If he put in the work to get you in, he can put the effort to drag you out."

"I'm aware of what he's capable of," she says with a frown, "but he's done so much for me already."

Ichigo's brows furrow. "He's your brother."

"Not in so many ways…" His silence conveys his confusion, and she sighs once more. "My sister met him at a charity ball for cancer awareness. She wasn't even in remission, she was actively sick. Had to carry around an oxygen tank and everything. The only reason they got married six months later was because it was just me and Hisana, she didn't want to risk me having to go through the system again. Byakuya-sama wasn't enough of a jackass to say no."

A breeze ruffles their hair, rippling the water too until the air settles again.

"It was thanks to Byakuya-sama that Hisana even lasted as long as she did, and thanks to him, I didn't get lumped with the medical bills; I have my own room, I get driven everywhere, I get to go to school, I don't have to worry about eating, I…I have everything." A hysterical giggle bubbles from her lips. "And I'm upset that I don't belong in one of the best private schools in the country because I've got charity case written all over me." She swallows the giggles until she's hiccupping, and Ichigo has the terrifying realization that she's crying.

He brushes his shoulder against hers. "Hey…"

Rubbing furiously at her eyes, stray tears splashing against his skin. "Not like it really makes a difference, Byakuya-sama's family weren't exactly pleased with his decision to marry Hisana in the first place, being responsible for me is already asking too much."

"Is it really asking though to want to be happy?"

"Maybe…maybe that's the point."

"Hisana wouldn't have wanted you to feel like this."

"It's wrong, though, isn't it," she asks, quietly imploring, "to want to be happy even though she's gone? I know it's what she would want but…"

"There's nothing that says you can't be both…that's…that's what grieving is."

Noticeably she swallows, turning her gaze back to the horizon. "Does it…does it get better?"

He exhales. "Some days…some days are better than others. But…" The sun sets in the distance with the sky bruising in shades of purple and blue to match her eyes when they met his, and he smiles quietly. "But the days do get better. I promise." 

 

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started this story going through some mental health stuff that had me feeling a certain way (hint, not good), and I've been reluctant to continue. However, I do want to finish writing it, even if it's going to go a different route to what I initially planned.
> 
> It won't be all sunshine and rainbows, but I don't think it'll get sad enough to even warrant an angst tag.
> 
> It also probably won't be updated at the speed that Hazards and Modern Romance were, and I'll very likely only work on it in January.
> 
> This chapter can also be seen as oneshot if you choose not to continue reading.


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